Jesus At Work...

Learning to be for Him, not them

by Brittany Blomstedt

 

I am wrapping up one of my most challenging weeks at Mercy Street thus far. Here’s the background: Last Monday was an extremely hard day for everyone. For whatever reason, the Jr. Interns were pretty out of control, lots of negative attitudes and disrespect, lots of sleeping, complaining, cell phone using, dress code breaking, etc. As a staff, we found ourselves exhausted and frustrated by the end of the day. After taking some time to process with one another and pray, we decided we needed to give grace, while also re-emphasizing our policies. We agreed as a staff that we must be more consistent in discipline in order to better love our students. The next day, my co-leaders and I had a conversation with our small group reminding them of our expectations for them and encouraging them to step up as leaders. I talked about how much I believed in them, and told them that we would be cracking down harder on all of the policies in order to help them grow as leaders. We explained to our students that one way to love them is to not let them stay as they are, and that that was our motivation in enforcing the discipline expectations. Thinking all was well, and that everyone was on the same page, we went on with our day.

Just a few hours later, as Carlton spoke to the students, I noticed one of my girls on her phone. My first thought: No, please no. Maybe I’ll just pretend I didn’t see it this time. Knowing it would be a fight, I wrestled back in forth in my mind Do I say something? Do I let it go? What is grace, what is truth? Is the fight worth it? After praying and thinking for a minute, I knew I had to say something. It would not be love to tell my girls I was going enforce discipline, not letting them stay as they are, and then passively continue to let things slide so that I didn’t have to be disliked. After all, that would have been all about me- my desire for things to be easy, my desire to be accepted, and so on. So, as our policy goes, I decided I needed to give this student a warning. That one simple warning totally changed my relationship with most of my girls for the next several days. Frustrated by the discipline, my girls began to reject my high fives, move seats when I sat next to them, lie to and about me, sleep during small group… the list goes on. And, as you can imagine, as each day went by, I began to grow more and more weary. I felt totally lost and confused, really unsure of how to reconnect with and love on them.

As I spent time with the Lord each day, begging Him to mend our relationships, all I could really hear Him saying were two things: “Are you working to please men, or Me?” and “Don’t stop.” At first I didn’t take this conviction too seriously, I simply pegged His first question as a cliché scripture, and decided “Don’t stop” was an annoying command, (In my mind, it didn’t include what steps to actually take, so it was therefore a pointless conviction!) But as the week went on and I really began to examine my heart, I realized the power of Galations 1:10: “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” I began to realize that trying to win the favor of man and the favor of God could not happen at the same time- I had to choose one. I began to confess my desire to win approval from my girls, and began to pray hard that I would serve each day at Mercy Street to please and honor the Lord instead. I realized I had to stop basing my peace on what happened with my girls each day, and instead that I must find all of my peace in the truth of Jesus’ perfect love, perfect power, perfect grace, and perfect sovereignty.

Over the past couple of days, I have had to send 2 of my girls home for the week, I have been ignored at times and given much attitude in some situations. I have also laughed a lot, and had a few really cool, unexpected conversations with girls that I never could have planned myself. Just today I had the opportunity to talk to one of my girls for over an hour about trusting God and trusting people. In that conversation she admitted that she has put up walls against me and the other Senior Interns, knowing that we are just temporarily here for the summer. She admitted to riding us off early on, knowing we were leaving. It hurt my heart to hear that, because I get it… temporary relationships are hard, and can be really hurtful. But because of her honesty, we were able to talk about God’s sovereignty, and that He has us together this summer for a purpose that we can’t claim to know or understand. I was able to walk her through what it looks like to learn to trust people because you trust God. What started as a hard, heated discussion turned into a beautiful, revealing, humbling and challenging conversation for both of us.

The relational challenges I have faced this week have taught me this: The Lord is my Rock. He is the only thing that will never change. Some days my girls will like me, some days they won’t. Some days they’ll get it, some days they will totally miss it. Some days we will laugh together, some days 1 or all of us will cry, and some days we might not connect or talk at all. But through all of those things, all the changing circumstances, emotions, challenges….my mission here at Mercy Street, and for the rest of my life, never changes. Love God, love people… and don’t stop.

We have 3 weeks left with the Jr. Interns, and I, along with the rest of my team, desperately need your prayer! Please pray that that we would stay the course well. Pray for energy and creativity. Pray that as we have conversations and begin to go deeper with the Jr. Interns, we would speak with wisdom, truth, and grace. Pray for the Jr. Interns- that they would deeply desire to know God more intimately, that they would ask good questions, that walls would be broken down. God is working here. Hearts are stirring, chains are being broken. I deeply believe in God’s work here in West Dallas, and I am excited to continue sharing with you over the next few weeks! Thanks so much for your support and prayer!